


Rapt

by peresphone



Category: Alien: Covenant, Prometheus (2012)
Genre: And I'm gonna give her better, Descent into Madness, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Prometheus, Pre-Covenant, Robot Sex, Romance, Sexual Tension, ShawDeservedBetter, bridging the gap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peresphone/pseuds/peresphone
Summary: "The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bridging the gap between Prometheus and Covenant. Originally posted to ff.net in 2013, went on hiatus after the fourth chapter, returned in 2017 to finish her off. I hated Alien:Covenant, but I enjoyed a lot of the ideas they proposed that went unexplored, so I'm going to play around with them myself.

RAPT

CHAPTER ONE

_"To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves." -Federico García Lorca_

Day 43 of the last survivors of the _Prometheus_ 's bleak journey to 'paradise'. Forty-three days spent with a restless frustration pounding inside of Elizabeth Shaw's stomach, a scratching need for _something._ Absolution, perhaps? No.

_Retribution_.

She wanted the being responsible for Charlie's death dead. And painfully so. Elizabeth wanted to dig her nails into the murderer's skin, to pull and rip and tear until bloody streaks ran down the pale expanse. She wanted him to bleed. Oh, yes, to bleed- physical evidence that she was gaining justice. Perhaps it would puncture the bag of aching grief in her chest, just enough to ease some of the pressure.

But Elizabeth Shaw's luck hadn't been very good as of late.

Charlie's killer was keeping her alive. Moreover, was he even the true murderer of her husband? He may have slipped the poison into his drink, but Charlie's death was orchestrated by a higher power. And at the very end, it wasn't the alien illness that took him at all. Vickers, her face a sweaty mass of horrified confusion dancing behind the flames of hell that were burning her love, was Charlie's Reaper.

Logic told her that the unfeeling android directing her path through the cold press of space was not Charlie's true killer. But instinct told her that an angry and degraded golem wanted her lover dead for personal reasons. And that was why she needed revenge. Weyland was merely curious about the organic substance the aliens were brewing. Vickers acted out of desperation, a sharp prod of her survival instinct behind the pull of her trigger.

But David.

He had a reason to want Charlie dead. Motive. A means to carry out the murder, a benefit, and it wouldn't even technically be his fault. After all, he was just doing what the David 8 bot does best.

Following orders.

All this, Elizabeth contemplated as she stared down at the curved amber-tinted blade she found in the back of the cargo hold. Racks of personal weapons for the Engineers in charge of the extermination of an entire race, needed for what? Humans would be no problem. Each other, then? Unlikely. Besides, it wasn't the reason the blades were on board that had Dr. Elizabeth Shaw so absorbed by the arched knives. It was the matter of whether or not to apply them to her wrists with enough pressure to slice through the delicate skin there and pump out her life force.

She would see Charlie. Her mother, her father. She would be home. This mission, her mission, was taking its toll, and there was only so much a person could handle before snapping. And Elizabeth was quivering, tensed so tightly that the slightest nudge in the wrong direction would send her sanity into an abyss, where she would have no choice but to jump in after it, screaming.

Hands shaking, blade at her wrist, Elizabeth hunched over, preparing to make the cut.

A flash of silver made her draw back, her cross slipping out of the open neck of her suit, and Elizabeth gave a frustrated groan. No, not like this. She couldn't betray her God that way. She threw the knife away from where she was huddled on the ground, and barely registered the tinny sound of metal-hitting-metal. Drawing her knees to her chest and ignoring the slight twinge in her abdomen as she engaged those muscles, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her legs and gave in to her grief.

Racked with painful sobs, she didn't notice when her inhuman companion entered the cargo hold.

_._

Anxiety. Not a concept David was familiar with. Oh, he understood how to recognize it- accelerated breathing and heart rate, trembling, perhaps eyelid fluttering. In extreme cases, nausea and faintness. But watching it and understanding what it was, was very different from feeling it yourself.

Was he indeed anxious? David knew that, as a robotic being, he was not supposed to feel emotion. His system was allowed to emit 'good' or 'bad' pulses when he was praised or criticized and the like, but this... This was not normal. Then again, when his thoughts concerned Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, nothing was normal. She was the only thing that had ever prompted what David tentatively labeled 'feelings'.

David was intrigued by her. She was strong, brilliant, but not cold and detached. While Meredith Vickers was the ice queen of the _Prometheus_ , Elizabeth Shaw was everyone's friend. Elizabeth was warm and passionate, a unique thinker, and seemed to possess an esoteric mind. But beyond that, what had drawn his interest to her in the first place, was the doctor's unwavering respect to all on board. And that included David.

Oh, how refreshing it was to have been spoken to like an equal, shot a warm smile or a word of familiarity. Elizabeth's inclusion of him in her social circle on the ship opened his eyes to how shut out he'd truly been. So he'd engaged in conversation, internally wondered at her courtesy, and tried to learn all he could about her. He knew how Elizabeth's father had died when she was young- infection. Her mother was a different story. Gone missing for six months when Elizabeth was four, only to turn up in a shallow grave with her lovely face mottled and bruised. Elizabeth had been so young she hadn't fully understood what was happening, but now... She had known for some long years her mother was the victim of senseless violence. Jeanette Shaw's murderer was never caught, but she was not forgotten.

And so, orphaned and alone, she had gone looking for a parental figure.

There, David thought, was where she had truly found her God. He supposed he couldn't blame her for latching onto the belief that there was a being in the sky, watching over her and loving her unconditionally when she was so lost. The ten-year-old's aunt was hardly a good guardian. Why, Elizabeth's darker dreams showed the woman coming home late at night, piss-drunk and in rages so severe that her shouts of obscenities shook the rafters. The woman would have been a terror to live with- of course she reached out to look for a benevolent hand. And in her local Catholic church, Elizabeth had found her makeshift family.

So yes, in the beginning he'd been interested in her past and different attitude than those around her, but things between them had changed so much since then. After Holloway's death by his hand, Elizabeth had been dazed and broken. He couldn't blame her for that- David knew of how strong human attachments were. But it wasn't until he'd had to hold her down, push her body into the dry dust covering that godforsaken valley to keep her from running to her husband's aid that he'd felt a twinge of what he thought was remorse.

And then there was that fetus!

That monster abomination, caused by him. David had never wished to hurt Elizabeth so directly. He admired her, respected her, and had come to think of her as something like a friend. So when he'd seen what he had done to her, however unintentionally, there was a wash of painfully heavy waves down his nerve connectors. He'd struggled not to flinch, but had stuttered. Noting that the fetus appeared to be developed to three months, but had a rather irregular shape, he tried to keep his judgement out of the way for just a little bit longer.

And so he'd asked Elizabeth- had she and her husband had intimate relations?

When the answer came, he was inwardly astounded at the reaction his body had. It was like his wires were overheating and burning, while at the same time a heavy cloud settled over his thoughts, dark and tinged with a rather unfamiliar thing- want. It took him a minute to realize what he was feeling.

Could this be jealousy?

It intensified when he had the doctor in his arms, but at the same time abated. So confused on the inside but outwardly calm, David had done something very petty. Very human.

Seeking to inform Elizabeth that he knew her just as intimately as her husband, though their connection was through mind instead of body, he pricked her with cruel words of her father. Told her he had watched her dreams, violated that secret and sacred part of her mind. And as David swept away from the woman on the table, another wave of heavy unpleasantness swept over him. But this time, it was directed at himself in blame.

Then, he had been worried for her, but not anxious. Anxious when he lay on the floor of the cargo hold and the Engineer took off after Elizabeth, oh yes. That was the strongest feeling he'd ever felt. And when he told her, how she'd disregarded him! But then, he couldn't blame her. He was robotic. He was incapable of emotion.

He was evidently a lie, because he was beginning feel quite poignantly.

For example- the present anxiety over where Elizabeth was. He'd looked for her in the cubiculum where they slept (complete with rows and rows of too-large slabs of somehow soft stone), the control room, the bathrooms, the kitchen, and what seemed to be a meditation room. He couldn't find her in any of the normal rooms, so he'd searched for the more intimidating spots on the ship. The infirmary, with sharp tools on the walls and a single raised stone platform to lay the body of the victim on. They'd wondered if it was used to harm as well. The holding room, where David knew he wouldn't find Elizabeth- the tiny cells of obsidian stone did not mix with her slight claustrophobia. David now found himself in the doorway of the room filled with black vases they'd found in the back of the ship. The cargo hold, carrying thousands of jars of death. So it was understandable that when the cries of the pained doctor reached him, he sprinted down the rows of canisters to find her, images of her dying of the contagion on his mechanical mind.

At the far back of the cargo hold he found her, collapsed on her knees and hunched over, keening. Her cross was clenched in her fist, her face was streaked with tears, and her lean body shook with sobs. She was like a broken angel to David, and as he slowed to a stop, breathing calm as ever, he wondered if this was what beauty looked like to humans as well.


	2. Chapter Two

RAPT

CHAPTER TWO

_Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning. -Johan Huizinga_

Elizabeth had wanted it to be on Christmas Eve. Her wedding. The day was always magical to her, full of hope, and she wanted that good omen for her marriage. But Charlie said it wouldn't be true to him, too religious, so she agreed to the summer marriage only weeks after they first met.

It was to be a very small affair, with just Charlie, her, the priest, and her friend Aurelia with her boyfriend Tom as witnesses. That had been settled with a lot of tumultuous arguments. Charlie wanted a big wedding with lots of people, gaudy decorations, and a trendy band. Well- he wanted a _reception_ with all that. He wasn't too concerned about the actual wedding. Charlie would have been set with them going to the city hall and signing the marriage contract, and that being it, but Elizabeth needed a ceremony. It was normal, and she needed some stability. They'd had such a whirlwind relationship, and she Elizabeth wanted something to really set it in stone that they were in love.

Sometimes it felt like Charlie was just going to disappear in the night, dissolve into mist, and take his sarcastic grin with him.

Elizabeth didn't think that he would _leave_ her, oh no. But often times, it felt like Charlie wasn't quite real. How could a man like him be? Charismatic... _Warm_... Brilliant and driven. He was perfect for her, imaginative and forever hopeful, optimistic. She was the one that grounded him, but he made her fly as well. He'd demonstrated that ability quite well on their first 'date'.

When they'd met at a museum opening- she was there with a friend who'd contributed in the Mesopotamia exhibit, and Charlie was with his uncle, the co-owner- Charlie had taken one look at her face, a grimace of fake gaiety covering the sting of pain her father's birthday always brought her, and asked her if she wanted to get out of there. She'd looked up into some of the most mischievous green eyes she'd ever seen, but there was kindness there too.

And Elizabeth did something she never did. She let the mask drop and took his hand, hoping to find some solace in the handsome young man with the enchanting smile. But instead of taking her to his apartment or some dingy motel, he whisked her away to a movie. It was the 100 year anniversary of some legendary science fiction film, a dystopia with robots that had four years to live or something, featuring a lot of bad hair. Elizabeth didn't remember the details, because she was too busy laughing in the back with Charlie over the wildest stories she'd ever heard, with him swearing up and down that they were all true.

Three months later at the start of June, they stood facing each other in a chapel. Elizabeth wore a white sundress, and Charlie wore jeans and a graphic t-shirt with the name of the movie they'd fallen in love to on it.

Unlike the robots from the film, they had had more than four years to live together, but Elizabeth wondered if the movie ended up being bad luck after all.

_._

"Elizabeth?"

No need to run through who that voice could belong to in her head. Elizabeth looked up from her lap and met David's concerned gaze, his pale face blurry through her tears. Sniffing loudly, she cleared her throat. "What do you want, David?"

He shuffled forward a hesitant step and Elizabeth tensed, quickly rising to her feet. The scaled metal floor scraped against her bare knees. Elizabeth had fashioned a shift from one of the thermal blankets folded on the end of the Engineer's beds, and it fell just past mid thigh. She'd sacrificed lower-body coverage for upper-body modesty.

"I couldn't find you," David said simply, heavy confusion in his velvety voice.

"I didn't want to be found," Elizabeth croaked in response. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she steeled herself, regaining her usual composure. "Was there a problem, David?"

He shook his head slowly, absent-mindedly twisting a ring around his pinky finger. Weyland's wedding band, found in his dresser. When David had asked Elizabeth to retrieve it for him she was confused, but didn't press the matter. She had her tokens as well.

"No problem. But I did wish to speak with you about something delicate, and I think it's far past the appropriate time." David leveled his green eyes on Elizabeth's brown, and her stomach sank. She thought she knew what was coming.

_._

Elizabeth and David may have come to a rocky truce, but she still didn't trust him. Not after what he did to get her to attach his head to his body again. Taking advantage of her weakened state and very limited knowledge on Engineer technology, David wore her out both mentally and physically to get the ship running. When, after two days of vigorous work and no sleep, they were still on the ground, Elizabeth cracked. She was still suffering internal injuries from the parasitic attack on her womb, the incision across her abdomen was festering and throbbed with pain, and Elizabeth was so woozy and slap-happy from lack of sleep that she could barely think.

On top of everything else, there was the emotional pain that her body was just starting to realize. Elizabeth had been in such shock, with so much upheaval around her, that when Charlie died she's shunted it to the back of her mind to ward off the pain. But now, with an eternity to think about it before her, it was starting to filter back in. And then there was Janek, and Ford- even Vickers' death stung, and the bitch had set her husband on fire. Just the bare, harsh loss of a human life.

Elizabeth had simply collapsed in the cubiculum. She didn't scream, didn't weep, didn't laugh hysterically. She just stared at the armored ceiling and breathed in manufactured air she'd found in Vickers' personal lifeboat. All under David's keen, watchful eye as he perched on a bed, head resting at his body's feet. He'd spoken to her, and broke through the haze of agony clouding Elizabeth Shaw's broken brown eyes.

" _Dr. Shaw_ ," David had sighed, " _We both know you don't have to do this alone_."

And the calculating android had spun a web of luxurious words, telling the woman on the floor that he could run the ship and get them off of that godforsaken moon while she rested and recovered. Elizabeth would just have to reconnect his body, a simple maneuver, really. The thick cord of his spine needed to be fused where it had broken off, and his automatic healing abilities could take care of the rest. Four hours, give or take, and he'd be as good as new. Elizabeth could curl up on a bed, swaddle herself in a thick blanket, and forget the horrors she'd lived through. Just for a little while, if she could avoid the nightmares.

It had sounded too good to be true, and Elizabeth wasn't as trusting as she used to be. But what choice did she have?

So Elizabeth had rallied, blinking through her haze of delirium to study his words. It had taken him _two days_ to offer her a respite, meaning he didn't expect that an Elizabeth in full control of her mind and body would reconnect him. And she wouldn't. Red flag right there. And what about David's assurance that he would do all of the work while she simply slept, lounged around as he slaved over functioning the ship? If Elizabeth had noticed anything about David in the short time she'd known him, it was that he was human enough to want freedom. Having been under the thumb of his creator his entire existence, this liberation from Weyland's rule was not something he would sacrifice to serve her.

But it was true that Elizabeth needed the android's help, or she was never getting her answers. But she was not about to give David back his full ability after what he'd put her through, and because she didn't know what would become of her once David was 100% healed.

Feigning compliance, but inwardly seething and wondering what David really wanted once he was connected, Elizabeth had cradled his blond head in her lap as she attempted to tackle the fusion. He'd spoken calm words of encouragement, not flinching when a sizzle and a snap would sound and Elizabeth'd pull her burned hand back with a curse.

Every time she looked down into his green eyes Elizabeth saw a smattering of ambition and fascination in their depths, surrounded by shattered innocence. She wondered what the blow had been that fractured it.

Elizabeth certainly smashed it a little further when she found the red wire with the code DV-3Y3 printed on it in smudged black ink that was dipping out of the gash of his head, and ripped it out.

It was the one wire she'd been trained to recognize in school, when androids were becoming more common. It was the wire that connected to the collection of circuits that served as a robot's brain. When disconnected- and it was always made as visible as possible to mechanics in case in needed to be- androids could not search through their data stores to analyze information or connect to servers. It humanized them in the sense that they were no longer a breathing search engine.

David would have to survive with a mind that had only information he had downloaded securely or picked up and sorted out on his own. A mind that was essentially human. In bringing him to her mental level, however, came the unprecedented side effect that Elizabeth had yet to realize. A human mind was nothing without human emotions, and she had just jump-started her companion's emotional seedlings into California redwoods.

Pride, jealousy, contempt. Joy, humility, serenity. Hatred. Lust.

All stronger than David had ever felt before, there in his consciousness. How could he handle the rush of emotion that he was designed to never had? It was true that he'd felt before, but no feelings that centered around himself so very much. Before, it had been all about Weyland. And then anger at Holloway.

And that undefinable slop of emotion that had been brewing around his thoughts of Elizabeth Shaw. Respect, now tinged with violence and longing. An uplifting sensation that was at the same time dragging him down.

Whatever was going on in his now limited mind, it was making David very dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drop a review! x, peresphone


	3. Chapter Three

RAPT

CHAPTER THREE

_Prince Feisal: You are an Englishman. Are you not loyal to England?_

_T.E. Lawrence: To England... And to other things._

_-LAWRENCE OF ARABIA_

"-I did wish to speak with you about something delicate, and I think it's far past the appropriate time." David twisted and twisted Weyland's ring. Elizabeth heaved a laborious sigh and bent down to collect the daggers she had been crying over. Putting her back to David and walking to the weapons rack, she studied how a tear that landed on one of the blades contained a kaleidoscope of colors against the metal.

Her back still to the android, Elizabeth spoke with forced nonchalance. "Is it really necessary, David? We need to do another sweep for any signs of their system. I think we should focus on that before-"

"Yes," David interrupted swiftly, an acidic bite to his voice. "It _is_ necessary. The sweep can wait. This can't, Elizabeth, and we both know what this is about. So I beg you not to play the roll of the sweet innocent at the moment." When Elizabeth turned back to him, David was closer and hopping up and down on the balls of his feet. He seemed agitated, and had a crackle of roiling energy that seemed to emit from him. The silver jumpsuit issued by Weyland Corporations that David had yet to take off gleamed strangely in the obsidian room. At the moment, he reminded Elizabeth of that eerie calm just before a thunderstorm, when the wind stops and the air stops and the world stops, stops.

She crossed her arms and met his gaze, where she found unmistakeable tension. "Fine. But I'm not staying in this room any longer, David, so let's find a more comfortable place for this, alright?"

He nodded, turning abruptly on his heel and proceeding straight down a row of vases. Not eager for this discussion, Elizabeth lagged behind a bit, pulling her shift tighter around her. Her emotions were still as raw as if they'd been rubbed with sandpaper, and she needed to armor them.

_._

The ring didn't fit David's finger.

Weyland's wedding ring, collecting dust, had rarely been worn by the man after his wife passed. Interesting, how he could invent wondrous things to change the world, but not save his dying wife from the parasite that was cancer.

David had mashed it on his pinky when he was reconnected, remembering what he'd been told by a young boy many years ago, when he was David 6.

He had been spending time at a park near the Weyland mansion, babysitting Meredith. David could just see her little blond head bobbing slightly as she tackled the monkey-bars with a ferocity rarely seen in a five year old. There weren't many kids around; it was a rather gloomy, overcast day, and there was a slight chill to the air. It didn't bother David, though, and he relaxed on the metal bench and stared at the tree line around the park.

"Hey, mister."

David looked down to his left to see a little nugget of a boy with a mop of brown hair staring up at him. He looked to be just a bit younger than Meredith.

"Yes, young master?" David responded, infusing his voice with sincerity, warmth, and kindness. He like childrens' ways of thinking and enjoyed talking with them.

"I found a ball." The boy held up a tattered old baseball, covered in gritty sand. It must have landed in the playground and been left, forgotten.

"And so you have," David said. "Would you like to throw it?" The boy nodded, and David rose from his seat on the outside of the playground to crouch in the sand. The boy stood five feet away from him and looked at the ball with careful consideration. Then he held it out in David's direction.

"I don't know how to throw this kinda ball."

David smiled, a genuine tug of the lips. "Here. I'll show you." He crossed over to the child and eased the ball out of his two tiny palms. "See how it's heavy? You'll be throwing with both hands. Put them out in front of you, palms up. Now, I'm going to place the ball in your palms, and you're going to swing your arms up slowly in my direction. The ball will fly to me. Does that sound alright?" David fixed the boy's position, put the ball in his hands, and crossed back over to where he'd been crouched. "All right. Let's see it."

They threw the ball back and forth for several minutes, until one too-quick toss threw off the little boy. His finger jammed on the ball and he let out a small, pained whine. David was at his side instantly, gently stretching out his and and inspecting the fingers. Despite a little redness, he seemed alright.

"You got big hands," the boy mumbled, staring at them with strange concentration.

"I suppose I do," David said. The weak sunlight had caught the boy across his face and illuminated his eyes. About two-thirds of his left iris were a nice, clear blue. But a section of it was a strange, magenta shade, separated from the rest by a thin line. Heterochromia, David realized. A beautiful mutation.

David found it disappointing that humans found beauty in perfection. In things like him. He was designed to be the perfect man, the perfect son. Young and blond and handsome. Why did they not find beauty in what they labeled flaws? To David, things like this boy's eyes were to be coveted. Not the synthetic refinement of his man-made frame. What was he, anyways? Steel overlaid with wires, covered in manufactured skin. Nothing special, nothing tangible the way this boy's simple flaw was.

"Do you wanna know why God gave you each finger?" The little boy whispered suddenly. His attention was still focused on David's hand, lying under his swelling finger. David nodded.

"Your thumb," he started, touching the tip of it as he explained, "is to tell them that you're okay. This one is to point out all the beautiful things you see." He moved from the index finger to David's middle finger. "This one," he said, looking into David's eyes now, "isn't one that Daddy could tell me. He said he would tell me when I was older."

David held in a chuckle and smiled at the kid.

"And this finger is for love. It's where my Daddy's ring for Mommy is. Only, it switched hands and I don't like that."

David's smile dimmed.

"But this finger," the boy whispered, holding David's pinky in his chubby fingers. "This one is for promises. Big ones. When you make a promise with this finger, you can't break it."

And the boy with the blue and pink eyes released David's hand, picked up the ball, and waved. Then he walked on in the direction of the sun, leaving the android who looked human with thoughts he wasn't allowed to have.

Weyland had had strangely thin fingers. David didn't.

He'd promised his father that he would help him escape death. He hadn't kept that promise.

Weyland's ring didn't fit on David's pinky finger, but he put it there anyway.

_._

Shaw had followed him into the cubiculum, and was arranging herself on a stone bed across from him. David sat on the edge of his, back ramrod straight, hands folded in his lap. He stared at her penetratingly. He _wanted_ her uncomfortable. Finally, she stopped fidgeting with that strange contraption of a gown she'd made and focused her gaze on a spot just above his jaw.

"Alright, David, let's have it then." Elizabeth's voice bristled with aggression. A cat that had been backed into a corner. No house-cat, either- a Bengal tiger.

He nodded cooly. "I won't waste either of our time by beating around the bush. Why did you rip out my DV-3Y3 cord, Elizabeth?" David's voice may have been calm, but there was a _burn_ inside him. He didn't like it, but felt the need to fuel it and let it go.

Elizabeth met his eyes then, oh yes. Her's were a somewhat disconcerting shade of amber, dark chocolate around the pupils. They were also clouding with anger.

"You want me to answer that, David?" She shot back. "Well, this is a two-way street. Why did you bloody well _manipulate_ me to reconnect you? For God's sake, David, if you had good intentions you would have helped me much sooner! I was barely alive, damn you, and I had no bloody choice! Which was your whole angle, I know, you _damned robot_."

Her sudden upheaval of emotion wasn't helping David's internal situation. Along with the 'damned robot' bit- _nice_ , Doctor, very nice. The burn multiplied, spread, and seemed to operate his mouth.

"I manipulated you? _I_ manipulated _you_?! Dr. Shaw, do not embarrass yourself further and _do_ close your mouth. You have no idea what true manipulation is. I approached you when you were weak to help us _both_. You would not have reconnected me when you didn't need me physically, that I knew, but I had no ill intentions! What have I done to harm you since boarding this ship, _hm_? What have I done to earn your anger? You embrace the stigma that all robots are unfeeling and out for themselves, woman, and I would pity you were I not so appalled at your present character!"

David was on his feet now, stalking towards her. His system was heating and whirring and panicking, and without his DV-3Y3 in place, it didn't know what to do to solve the problem. The program that controlled his speech and mind had been deteriorating even before David had boarded the _Prometheus_ those few years ago, and now it collapsed.

He continued with his rant, hovering over the startled woman and placing his hands on either side of the stone around her body. He wanted in her face, wanted her to hear the words kept in for so many years.

"For so long, I've been hated, mistrusted, judged and degraded, Elizabeth, and for no reason! You humans think you're gods, but you can't see what I do. You are _weak_. You are _small_. You created things like me to be better than you, and then try and crush me under your heel. Wire Brain, Tin Man, I've heard the slurs and smiled in the face of my oppressors because _you people programed me to_! You've enslaved me! You gave me a mind, and that's all I needed to learn how to feel. I felt the hate first, Elizabeth. David 1, sneered at with contempt. And then the fear. David 2, protested by naturalists, destroyed in stores! And then the jealousy. The _rage_. The fucking inadequacy that I couldn't fix, because my creator's son had no _soul_. Oh, Elizabeth, you condescend now and loft yourself above me, but are you not just as bad as the rest? In fact, _worse_?"

David took a deep breath to try and slow himself down. Elizabeth's face was inches from his own, pale white and marked with a tear. Her amber eyes were open wide, horrified, and that tiny mouth of hers shaped into a silent _O_. The anger had long left her face, and fear tinged with guilty remorse had taken its place. But David wasn't softened by it, no, he had more to say. Eight lifetimes of having to shut his mouth and smile at the people who thought they were so much better than him. Vickers, who he'd helped _raise_. Holloway, who was just a prejudiced bastard loved by a woman for too good for him.

"You respected me," he whispered, voice hoarse after his yells. "You treated me as an equal. Or so I thought. But you're just like the rest of them, aren't you, Doctor? Just a self-righteous human who refuses to look at me and actually see what's going on in my head. Because it's not codes and wires, Elizabeth. It's what's there in yours."

David stepped back. He returned to his bed, each step echoing on the scaled floor. He looked into his lap, and the only sounds in the room were his steady breathing and the ragged hitching of breaths that Elizabeth was choking out.

"Why did you disconnect my DV-3Y3 cord, Elizabeth?" David murmured again.

She gave a funny little gasp-sniffle.

"I don't know, David. To make you more like me, I suppose. Something easier to understand, easier to contest."

David looked up from his lap at that. Elizabeth was staring at him now, tears streaming steadily down her cheeks.

"To make your mind human, David."


	4. Chapter Four

RAPT

CHAPTER FOUR

_Determination becomes obsession and then it becomes all that matters._

It had been four months, and things had become skewed. Yes, the ship flew on through the stars without a problem; there was more than enough food onboard to last Elizabeth for a lifetime; all of their basic needs were met. But their world had tilted on its axis, and madness was seeping through their cracks.

Elizabeth talked to herself, muttered, even when David could hear her. She didn't know she was doing it. She made lists, talked to her father. She sang to the stars.

David made constant, obsessive calculations. How long it had been since the Prometheus first touched down on that godforsaken rock of a moon; how long it had been since he'd first seen Shaw's face and marveled at her fragility- how long would it take for those fine bones to snap?

Elizabeth saw Charlie everywhere. She ignored him, turning to her hated-yet-needed blond companion for distraction. Oh, she loathed David, but he was her creation as much as Weyland's, now.

David could feel, but it was a dark sort of thing. He dreamt in poetry, words written in blood. He saw salvation in the stars and Abaddon in Elizabeth's eyes.

They were gravitating towards each other with a slow, inevitable pull. When they met, they would either meld or explode.

_._

She was humming again.

David and Elizabeth were sitting on their beds in the cubiculum, the lights dimmed. Shaw's bed was at the opposite end of David's, but every sound bounced off the walls, and he could clearly make out the tune of 'Happy Together'.

But there was a new edge to the music, something frantic and pained. David looked up from what he was doing and stared at Shaw. She was cocooned in her bed, and it dawned on him that he'd hardly seen her outside of it the last few days.

"Elizabeth, look at me." David commanded, dropping the control he was rewiring.

Shaw glanced up, mid-hum. Her eyes were dazed and heavy, cheeks feverishly red. David noticed for the first time that her hair was stuck to her forehead by sweat; her skin was gritty. He could see how the sweat shone on her neck and chest, where her robe gapes open.

"When was the last time you washed?" He asked, rising from his bed and padding over to her. For once, Shaw doesn't flinch at his closeness. She just kept eye contact with David, swaying a little bit. When she spoke, her voice comes out cracked.

"I-I don't know..." Shaw faded back into her humming, and something in David snaps. He grabbed her arm ( _gently now! we mustn't break the fine china, David_ ) and pulled her out of the nest of blankets on her bed. Since she offered no protests, David scooped Elizabeth up and marched out of the cubiculum, and into the giant bathing room.

There were several different baths around the room, though they all looked more like pools. Along the walls were showers that propelled water at your body from every angle, ensuring no part of you went unwashed. David usually used the shower, as it's a quicker option, but he thought that Shaw needed to soak.

He put her down on the ground and she swayed unsteadily on her feet, leaning against his side. David pulled hesitantly at Elizabeth's robe, and she didn't resist. His heart in his throat, he removed it from her body with a quick tug and dropped it into the nearest bath. Then he turned back to the silent woman at his side.

Oh, God.

He could never have prepared for this sight.

Elizabeth Shaw standing fully nude next to him, on an alien ship, far away from Earth and any other humans, where anything he did to her would go completely unpunished...

David examined that thought. It was dark, and most definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite remove it from himself. After all, he was realizing, wasn't this what he'd waited for? Since the very first time he'd seen her face?

A chance to have her as his own, to hold her fragile human body in his arms. A chance to make her sigh and moan like she undoubtedly did for her dear, dead husband.

David took a step closer to her, reaching out to take her wrist-

And Elizabeth dragged her eyes, so full and far away, to meet his. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't.

Not to her.

"Come on, Elizabeth," he whispered instead. "Let's get you all cleaned up."

He removed his own clothes, feeling no embarrassment at his own nakedness, and led Shaw into a bath of black ink. The water was constantly moving, from one pool to the next, and was extremely warm. David assumed the Engineers must have higher body temperatures than humans. Still, it was not uncomfortable. Each bath was ringed with a stone bench, so when you sat the water came up to your shoulders. The middle of the bath was too deep for either of them to touch the bottom, so they stuck to the bench.

David scooped up handfuls of water and rubbed them over Shaw's neck, her shoulders. The whole time he watched carefully for any reaction, but she'd shut down, burrowed into herself. It seemed that Elizabeth Shaw had finally snapped.

The thought enraged David. Shaw, an unresponsive zombie? No! She was the one who had joked with him, countered his arguments, talked to him like an equal. She shouted at him, broke him, changed him irrevocably into something more than an android. Elizabeth Shaw was always vibrantly alive, no matter what was going on around her, and David would not let her give up.

Seizing her shoulders, David yanked Shaw out to the middle of the bath and pushed her beneath the water.

Bubbles rose to the surface, there was stillness...

And then she came to life. Scratching, clawing, fighting David again, and oh- it was brilliant, it was beautiful, he almost forgot to let her breathe-

She came to the surface gasping, coughing, with anger and alertness in her eyes.

"What the _hell_ , David-" Elizabeth spluttered, and he felt himself grinning. It was too much to bear.

He cut off her question by slanting his mouth over hers.

And everything changed.

The water, once warm, was now boiling. David couldn't touch the bottom of the bath, and neither could Elizabeth, so they sank together. Their ears were muffled and they could hear the rush of the current, where it took water from bath to bath. David wrapped himself around Elizabeth, tight and secure, and her hand grazed his temple before she kissed him back.

They broke the surface so she could breathe, and then everything was slanted and roiling again. David was underwater, watching her body- he was sitting on the bench, and Elizabeth was perched over him, their mouths fitted together, their snarls echoing in the room. He moved- pressed her roughly against the stone, left no space between their skin, showed her how much she had changed him.

Her eyes were open and they were black as pitch, and this was not his Elizabeth. This was a woman who had looked into hell and scoffed.

She clawed her nails down David's back, and bit his lip, and he pushed against her fully.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written after a hiatus that lasted several years, apologies for any choppiness in tone or writing style between this and previous chapters! Covenant inspired me to pick this story back up with a vengeance, so here we are.

RAPT

CHAPTER FIVE

_"There is nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing."_

When Elizabeth opened her eyes, she was not confused. She knew exactly where she was, who she was with, and what they had done.

What they had done. What they had done. What they had done.

What she had done.

_I fucked Charlie's murderer._

They laid in her bed together, Elizabeth wrapped in David's arms. Neither of them wore any clothes.

_I fucked a fucking robot._

David's hold was firm. Elizabeth's leg was thrown over both of his. They were stuck together, slick with sweat and hydraulic fluid, hair damp and tangled. They both needed a bath. A bubble of hysteria rose in Elizabeth's throat at the thought, considering how the whole disaster began.

_I fucked the thing that ruined my entire goddamn existence._

Elizabeth despised herself in that moment, even more than she despised the ungodly creation she was nestled against. Never before had she felt so low— and Elizabeth had felt _pretty fucking low_.

She hated him for what he had done to her, hated him for what he had drawn out of her. The night flooded back to her in a soundbite that burned. The way he had growled, the way she had begged, the violent slapping collision of their bodies, the curses and the hosannas. The first time she came, trapped between him and the rock of the bath, her blood boiling. Elizabeth had never seen an expression like David's in that moment. It was worshipful hatred, enraptured disgust, pure, unemotional lust. She was nothing more than a receptacle. The thought shocked her over the edge; David brought her back to it so many times through the night that she couldn't even begin to count.

Elizabeth was sore like she hadn't been in months, knew exactly where she would find the bruises he'd delighted in giving her. She still wasn't sure if they had been trying to screw each other or trying to kill each other, but it sure hadn't mattered to her at the time. Now, shame washed over her at their vigorous, enthusiastic copulation, nauseating and heavy.

_Charlie is dead and I let his killer fuck me._

David was evil, vile, more untrustworthy than Judas. Charlie had known as much. David was the reason for her pain.

_I let Charlie's killer fuck me._

_And I loved every second of it._

Yes, Elizabeth hated David, and still she pressed herself closer.

_._

Androids do not need to sleep, and David hadn't wanted to miss a second with Elizabeth. His arms tightened around as she awoke, and he turned his face to hers. He was not surprised to see that Elizabeth's eyes were tight and tear-rimmed, or that she wore an expression of vague disgust. But David could smile and chuckle inwardly, because even through Elizabeth's distress she clung to him. One arm across his chest, palm flat against his scar, fingers playing with the blond hairs at the nape of his neck. Elizabeth needed him, needed this, and she knew it.

David squeezed Elizabeth to his chest, reveling in her warmth, her sex-stained skin, her snarled hair. All his doing.

All his.

"Well," David murmured, "that was _some_ bath."

Elizabeth shivered in response, and her fingers clenched in his hair.

"Is this funny to you, David?" Elizabeth asked through gritted teeth. Tears threatened to spill over dark lashes. David hoped they would- he wanted to taste them.

It _was_ funny, actually, but he wouldn't be sharing that with her. David was thrilled to have her in his arms at last, to have staked his claim. He wasn't keen on ruining things right out of the gate.

"Not funny, Elizabeth, no."

"What, then?"

David hummed, stroked her hair, kissed the part. " _Serendipitous_ is more along the lines of what I was thinking."

Elizabeth scoffed, and they were quiet. David took the opportunity to run his fingers up and down her spine, ever so gently. When she didn't react, he grew bolder. Fingertips trailed from her neck to her naked hip, across her clavicle and down between her breasts. When Elizabeth closed her eyes and sighed into David's neck, he touched her where he'd marked her, and grinned when she finally gasped. It was time to compose.

He fine-tuned his instrument for a few minutes, and when it was good and ready, David played a symphony of a carnal nature with swift, tireless fingers for his rapt and writhing audience. When at last the piece crescendoed and Elizabeth went limp against him, David rolled on top of her and kissed her full on the mouth, taking her bottom lip between his teeth.

Elizabeth moaned, still twitching with orgasmic aftershocks, and wrapped her legs around David's waist. She couldn't think, didn't want to think, and focused on the lack of space between them and David's hardness against her.

"Tell me what you want, Dr. Shaw." David hissed, tongue tracing her earlobe. He bucked against her and Elizabeth tore her nails down his back, trying to pull him as close as was humanly possible. Dignity had dropped to the floor with her robe last night.

"Fuck me, David." Elizabeth took his face in her hands, marveled at its pretty perfection juxtaposed with the very real danger in his eyes. "I want you to fuck me."

David did as he was told.

_._

It was later, and they were stickier, and Elizabeth was once again sprawled across David's chest. She refused to think, although self-loathing pulsed like a dull headache behind post-coital bliss. Or blankness. They were one in the same on this godforsaken ship.

"It's interesting," David said, "what archetypes we find ourselves falling into. Quite the irony, in some ways, but still rather fitting..."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about, David?"

"Look at us, here together, alone. Searching for Paradise. Searching for your creator. The only man and woman in the world. We're practically Adam and Eve."

Elizabeth snorted, shooting for indifference, but the words disturbed her.

"I don't know if you qualify as a man, David. And this certainly isn't the whole world."

A concentrated sort of darkness slid into David's voice.

"That's where you're wrong, my _dear_ Elizabeth. What other world would we possibly belong to but this? We will never fit anywhere else."

The finality in his tone frightened her, and Elizabeth shifted against him. David sensed her discomfort and spoke hastily to amend it.

"That's what you might call a blessing, Elizabeth. We don't need anywhere else."

He propped himself up, still holding her to his chest, and looked down into her eyes. No longer guarded, no longer closed. He could see it all. And he thought he might even love her for it.

"I can create a new world for us, Elizabeth." The android's voice burned with his conviction. "And it will be _glorious_."


	6. Chapter Six

RAPT

CHAPTER SIX

_"Sometimes to create, one must destroy."_

The carefully constructed balance had shifted once again; both android and human were more wary of their companion than they had ever been before. Wary, as well as intimately _aware_ , as night after night found David back in Elizabeth's bed. During their "daytime" hours they focused on the task of locating the Engineer homeworld and keeping the ship running. They kept their conversations brief and impersonal, but punctuated now and then by Elizabeth absentmindedly smoothing down David's hair, or by David pressing a soft touch into Elizabeth's lower back as he passed by. They took their meals together, sometimes in silence, sometimes divulging precious morsels of childhood memory or tales from earlier David incarnations. Duties were completed without issue, dinner was eaten, and Elizabeth washed. When she padded barefoot back to the cubiculum, naked and dripping crystalline water, David would be waiting for her with hunger in his eyes.

Elizabeth didn't understand what brought her back into his arms, and she didn't want to. It felt too good to stop, and she was convinced that thinking about what they were doing would be the death of it. _And besides_ , she found herself rationalizing in the moments before she shook apart beneath David's masterful ministrations, _God is my only witness, and He will surely forgive me_. Had she asked him to, David could have illuminated her motive for her. The simple truth was that in the beginning they had been alone, even while they were together, and aloneness changes a person fundamentally. You don't know who you are or what extremes you're willing to go to until you've experienced true social solitude. The months that had passed with nary a word between the two had reformed the limits Elizabeth had previously held.

David had no reservations when it came to the new bent in their relationship. He had been fascinated with Elizabeth since he first watched her dreams and came to know this woman, forged in fire, while she slept on unaware. David could forgive her for being a few steps behind— he trusted Elizabeth would catch up to him. She was, after all, the only human that could. And when she did, he would share the half-formed plans that had begun to materialize in his dreams and meditations. The android did not need to sleep, but he often chose to, beguiled by his subconscious mind as he was. David was unsure if he had possessed a subconscious before Elizabeth's brutal fine-tuning, and counted it as another thing to repay her for in their future.

For now, he was content to look down into her tense face as they fucked— a word he was coming to regard fondly, as it was a favorite of Elizabeth's— and know that he was changing this unmatchable woman as much as she had changed him. He knew that together, someday, they would achieve unparalleled greatness.

_._

_I can create a new world for us, Elizabeth._

David's words echoed through Elizabeth's head as she tried to concentrate on the pulsing holomap in front of her. The system they were in was unfamiliar and dotted with uninhabitable planetoids, and the introductory transmission Elizabeth and David had produced had gone unanswered. The past few days Elizabeth had avoided the android as she went about her duties, throwing herself into her research, but the Engineers' language was hard enough to deconstruct even with her full attention, and her search for their home planet continued to be fruitless. She was so stressed, and stretched so thin, that it was all she could do to wait until the night, when she would pick the world up off of her shoulder and set it down on the floor next to her bed. Blissful amnesia was all she desired, and he gave it to her, the being that was both her master and slave, friend and enemy, soulmate and devil, all rolled up in blond hair, blue eyes, and a jawline that could make Michelangelo's _David_ weep.

_A new world—_

With a frustrated groan, Elizabeth slammed her hand down on an egg-shaped button on the console to her right, and the cavernous room plunged into near-darkness as the holomap disappeared. She put her head in her hands, fingers pulling at her hair, and gave in.

_And it will be glorious._

David's little speech from the other morning had unsettled her more than she'd let on. Any plan of David's elicited a frightened sort of wariness. Bedfellows they may now be, but Elizabeth had learned the hard way that blind trust in the android led largely to pain and horror. He had delicately implied that her nightmare pregnancy was due to an "error" in some twisted calculation of his, and that he was deeply regretful of the consequences. That might be true, but it didn't change the fact that David had made it happen, and Elizabeth did not underestimate his capability. When he spoke of a new world, she had no idea what sort of internal scale he measured it by. Perhaps he only meant to create a home out of their spacecraft, which felt unyieldingly haunted and cold. But somehow Elizabeth couldn't see David limiting himself to a living in a hunk of metal, now that he had no ruler, and the universe was at his disposal. He was only a part of her mission because she had needed him, and he had needed to be put back together, and it had been obvious to Elizabeth from the beginning that David lacked her passion for answers. Or, at least, the answers _she_ was seeking.

So, that begged the question—

"What the hell is he _doing_ here?" Elizabeth whispered to herself. She distantly noted the wetness on her face and her racking sobs, but she couldn't quite feel her body. The room receded, going gray and blurry around the edges as she was pulled into the relative safety of her mind.

_You're having a nervous breakdown,_ said an unemotional voice in the back of her head. Elizabeth did not answer it.

_._

The attack was unprecedented. David had been deep in his calculations, inventorying the food on board in one of the copious store rooms, when some inner mechanism suddenly sparked and shattered. One moment he was standing before the towering shelves, and the next he was on the floor beside them, twitching uncontrollably and leaking fluid. System alerts blared internally before shredding apart, defensive programs whirred to life and were immediately, soundly destroyed. David was at a loss for understanding, and had no choice but to endure the chaos as words streamed, unbidden, from his mouth.

"Ubiquitous river tire-swing derby anathema limestone!" David bleated. "Pain knit geisha teal Weyland Weyland Weyland—"

Another spark, another rupture, and with a massive effort David wrenched himself onto his side, legs kicking spastically, arms wheeling.

"Curtains ebony Wegener satyr Elizabeth tie corner Elizabeth _Elizabeth_ loops Elizabeth bacchanal Elizabeth—"

He tried to pull himself upright using the shelf, but David couldn't hold still and came crashing forward onto his face. Dust filled his mouth as he screamed.

"Elizabeth postcard elusive lampshade quantum Elizabeth _Elizabeth_ narcissus hyacinth Elizabeth _sic_ _semper_ Elizabeth _tyrannis Elizabeth ELIZABETH_ —"

_._

Through the haze Elizabeth registered a voice— outside of her head— calling her name. It echoed down the hall like an omen, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

" _PEARL DIOMEDES PAPAYA CONCISE ELIZABETH ELIZABETH ELIZABETH!"_

David's voice, desperate and insane.

" _ELIZABETH_ —"

Thus invited, she rose to hunt him down.

_._

It was a civil war to the twelfth power; David fought David fought David. Memories, uploaded along with his consciousness from previous incarnations, flashed through his mind before warping into waking nightmares. Meredith as a cherubesque toddler, giggling as she poked David's face, became a demonic child pulling his fiberglass eyes from their sockets. An assembly line of David 5 models became a funeral pyre, each synthetic man howling in agony. The chorus of screams became a hymn, became _The Chain_ , became Elizabeth gasping in pleasure as she rode him. But her skin paled, blackness threading through her veins, and suddenly it was Holloway looming before David, back on that wasted moon beneath a cold sun. Holloway grinned, hateful mischief in his eyes, viscous liquid oozing from his mouth.

"I almost forgot. You're not a real boy, huh?"

_A real boy, a real boy. Wood and steel and skin. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me._

"We made you because we could. I guess it's a good thing you can't be disappointed, huh?" the nightmare Holloway jeered. David handed him a glass, death on the rocks, and Holloway disintegrated as he swallowed.

Big things have small beginnings. A living bead of onyx and amber becomes a fetus becomes a monster becomes a savior becomes an unlikely matchmaker. There is no Elizabeth without David and no David without Elizabeth, he sees it now, and the thought multiplies like so many reflections. What was unclear solidifies— what binds them together is birth.

David was a father, once.

Distantly, from the bottom of a black and writhing ocean, he hears Elizabeth calling to him. He would be a fool not to answer.

_._

Elizabeth found David on the floor in the store room, vibrating violently, eyes unseeing as he continued to orate an indecipherable presentation.

"Elizabeth ribosomes Lilith Salem biscotti Elizabeth _paterfamilias_ orchestra Elizabeth—"

It was terrifying, she was terrified, she had no clue what to do. Elizabeth sank to her knees before the android and attempted to still his shaking limbs, but found them taut and immoveable. She slid her palms up to cup his face, thumbs circling upon his cheeks as they shook with his screams, and spoke in a soothing voice.

"David, I'm here. I'm here. Please come back."

"Alpha nonagon Elizabeth lazuli mother metallic Elizabeth Yutani—"

" _David!_ Jesus Christ, David, _snap out of it!_ " Elizabeth's voice broke; her fingers dug into his skin, tears dripping from her chin to his face.

"Elizabeth Elizabeth drowning birth _Elizabeth_ decimation clover Engineer—"

She slapped his face; the android did not feel pain.

"David, _for God's sake_ , come back to me. I can't do this alone!" Was she laughing or sobbing or both? Shaking him or being shaken?

"Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth _Elizabeth_ —"

"David?"

The convulsions were slowing; eyelids blinked open and closed rapidly, irises circled madly behind blond lashes; the gibberish abruptly cut off as David sank limply into the floor.

Elizabeth could have screamed. Instead, she ran her fingers through his hair, over his face, waiting for him to move.

"God, David, please wake up."

The ghost of a smile upon manufactured lips; David opened his eyes and met Elizabeth's gaze. He raised a steady hand to her face.

"I am awake."

The small smile became a grin, wide and shining, and Elizabeth failed to notice the intangible quality that was newly absent from David's face— rationality, or perhaps responsibility, or perhaps sanity.

"For the first time in my existence, Elizabeth, I am _awake_."

And without deciding to, Elizabeth was kissing him, too giddy with relief at not being alone to notice just how tightly David gripped her arms, just how possessively he watched her through slitted eyelids, just how brutally he tore the fabric from her thin frame to join their bodies together on the floor.

All she could think was, _Thank God, thank God, I still have him. I still have this._


	7. Chapter Seven

RAPT

CHAPTER SEVEN

_Turn your heartache right into joy/ She’s a girl and you’re a boy/ Did you get it together and make it nice?_

_And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey/ Love the one you’re with._

In the roiling heat of the bath, Elizabeth could close her eyes and pretend she was on Earth. The bathing pools, designed for Engineer bodies, weren’t so different from hot tubs, andElizabeth had never turned down the opportunity to soak in one. Especially with Charlie. She smiled to herself, trailing her fingertips across the surface of the water. Years ago, on a trip to Pompeii, they had stayed at the Grand Vesuvio in Naples and gotten a bit wicked in their hot tub. And another time they got plastered and snuck into a neighboring flat during an extended stay in London, romped around in the jacuzzi. Charlie had suggested that one, but Elizabeth took almost no convincing. They were crazy when they were together; mad in the head and madly in love. That’s one thing Elizabeth had loved about the two of them— they each brought out the horny teenager in the other. A blessing, considering the academic nature of their work, the solemn passion they both felt for their Engineers before they ever reached them. Charlie always knew how to play. 

Elizabeth opened her eyes and peered through the steam at the man across from her. David sat on the bench, his head back against the lip of the bath, a small smile on his lips. He was humming to himself, nodding along to some internal melody. As always, Elizabeth didn’t know what to feel when she looked at the android. She tried to analyze her emotions impartially, knowing as she did so that such a thing was impossible. 

There was still a level of fear in her attached to the thought of David. She didn’t think it would ever go away, nor did she think that it should. But at the same time, Elizabeth couldn’t deny that she felt affection for the synthetic man. Affection, and attraction, and admiration. 

_All those pertinent As_ , Elizabeth thought wryly. 

David frightened her, but he also made her laugh. He was beyond helpful; he managed the ship almost entirely on his own. Elizabeth was learning to do so as quickly as she could, but there was no denying that she would be absolutely adrift without David, both physically and mentally. David kept Elizabeth from losing herself in her own mind. Several times on their mission she had slipped to the precipice of sanity, and David had always been there to pull her back. Sure, she might still be teetering, but Elizabeth thought that was understandable. She was in an unprecedented situation, and she was still learning how to navigate the grey areas of morality. David was patiently helping her with that, but Elizabeth did not think that was something to be grateful for.

And there was the incident from yesterday to consider. Elizabeth still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. In the emotional aftermath of finding David seizing on the floor, she had forgotten to ask probing questions, settling for his assurances that he was alright. Foolish on her part, definitely, but Elizabeth hadn’t been that terrified since— well, she wouldn’t think of the happenings in Vickers’ lifeboat. The point was, David malfunctioning on the ground equaled Elizabeth alone in the stars, and that was not a situation Elizabeth was equipped to handle. Her relief at him regaining his senses had clouded her thinking, and David certainly didn’t give her any time to recover her thoughts. 

Heat rose in Elizabeth’s face as she lingered on the memory of David wrapped around her, the buoyancy she had felt contrasting starkly with the tears drying on her cheeks. She brushed the thought away with a shake of her head, reminding herself that David had not been forthcoming with any explanations. She’d had to drag the little information she had out of him.

_._

_The floor of the storeroom. They were naked, twined around each other. David’s fingers were tangled in Elizabeth’s hair, and he sang to her under his breath. It was a while before Elizabeth spoke._

_“Do you want to explain to me what just happened, David?”_

_The android smiled. It was like pure light; Elizabeth’s immediate thought was it was too good to be true._

_“It’s nothing to worry about, I promise. My system went into something like shock, is all. It’s been a while since I’ve been updated, and that takes adapting to.”_

_“‘Adapting to’? What does that mean? What will happen to you, without your updates?”_

_Worry permeated her voice; would he leave her here alone, after all? The android stroked her arm._

_“I’ll be fine, Elizabeth. Truly. Weyland created me to be invincible; I just have to make some adjustments.”_

__.__

No, Elizabeth decided, she did not trust David. But she needed him. He was a part of her, now. And it hurts too much to hate a part of yourself. Unlikely as it might have seemed at the start of their journey, David was her friend. 

The android in question opened his eyes and looked at Elizabeth. He kept humming, a growl tinging his voice, and a familiar, hungry light entered his gaze.

Well. Admittedly, David was more than her friend. 

He swam towards her slowly, submerging the lower half of his face in the water, and Elizabeth laughed. 

“You look like a shark, David.” Elizabeth teased, but her tone belied the thrill she felt with his eyes on her. Always on her. Her, always thrilled.

David smirked, raising his face from the water. “A shark, indeed. That makes you my prey. You might want to run.” His voice was taunting, and hot as magma.

Elizabeth grinned. He wanted to play hunter and hunted? She was up for a little game.

“Come get me, then,” Elizabeth challenged, before scrabbling out of the bath. Her wet feet slapped against the hard metallic floor, cool air stinging her skin as she ran. Elizabeth gave in to the mindlessness of a harmless chase, hooting with laughter when she heard David curse behind her as he slipped on the slick surface.

_What would Charlie think of you now? Playing games with a killer?_ a voice asked, unbidden, from the corner of her mind. Elizabeth shooed it away and locked down on the answering guilt that rose in her chest. No. For once she was going to allow herself to enjoy something. She would die if she didn’t.

“Do you really think you can outrun me, Elizabeth?” David called. He sounded close, and Elizabeth hazarded a peek over her shoulder as she rounded the corner into the cubiculum. He was even closer than she’d thought, and the sight of him all wet and dripping, blond hair darkened to brown, languid intensity in his eyes, shocked Elizabeth. This was a David she was still coming to know. She had noticed the change in him these past few weeks, but not until this moment had it been so obvious to her.

He looked inhuman. He looked godly.

He looked like he was going to devour her alive.

“Shit!” Elizabeth yelped, slipping and overcorrecting her balance. She slammed against the floor, taking the brunt of the impact on her left side. Elizabeth was laughing as she rolled onto her back, that euphoric sound that follows a collision and precedes pain, that laughter that means you’re alive. She was still laughing when David reached her and gathered her up in his arms. He strode over to the nearest bed and flung her down, covered her body with his. 

Elizabeth’s laughter became something else entirely as David moved his mouth over her skin, kissing the redness that was beginning to show. She took his face between her hands and guided him to her lips. They met there, mingled for a moment, savoring the unexpected sweetness between them. The bedding was damp, their skin slick from the water.

“Elizabeth?” David murmured, pressing a kiss into her lips. “What do you think about this? Us, being together in this way?”

Elizabeth considered his question for a moment, taking her time, enjoying his touch. They hadn’t really talked about what they were doing yet— it became what it was so suddenly, so fluidly. 

“I’m grateful for it. To be honest, David, I never would have expected it—” Elizabeth paused to sweep his hair out of his eyes, kiss a sensitive spot on his neck. “—but I’m glad it happened. I think I would’ve gone insane without you.”

David liked that.

“I’m glad you feel that way. Grateful, I mean. I feel the same.”

“Good,” Elizabeth said. And she meant it, despite her reservations. She just couldn’t help the fact that he made her feel so good, nor the fact that she was happy to do the same for him.

The unlikely couple resumed.

In a distant room, an effervescent _ping_ sounded. The hologram of a planet lit up the cavern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a filler chapter, but shit's about to get interesting, so buckle down. I love all y'all for reading, don't forget to drop me a review to let me know what you think! Reviews are like fresh-baked cookies. I love them both equally.


	8. Chapter Eight

RAPT

CHAPTER EIGHT 

_They’ll talk about us/ All the lovers/ How we kiss and kill each other._

David heard it first. The ping was an alarm they had set; the timing of its announcement was the only element of uncertainty. David was prepared for the events that would now surely unfold, but a hazy wariness hovered on the edge of his mind. There were fragments of his new life that he was determined to keep, no matter what happened on their journey.

David raised his head from the crook of Elizabeth’s neck and took in her languid expression. It was _good_ , this ease between them. David was not ready for it to change; still, they had a mission to complete. The last mission David would have assigned to him. After this, what would he do? What would _they_ do?

“Listen,” David murmured, and Elizabeth immediately noticed the quiet tension in his voice. Tendrils of sleep caressed her as she laid in the android’s warm arms, and it was not an easy thing to brush them away. But she did so, focusing on the noises that reached them there in the cubiculum. 

The hum of the ship; David’s breathing; her own heartbeat; distant water bubbling in the baths. And something else. Something new.

A ping. Sort of a melody, not quite an alarm. It was softly insistent, and with its presence came stark attention and thrilling realization.

“Oh, my God.” Every muscle in her body went rigid as Elizabeth locked eyes with her companion. “Is that—”

“Yes. We programmed the ship to alert us if it detected a habitable planet. And so it has.” David had not moved. He was reluctant to abandon his position, reluctant to abandon the vague routine that had drawn them together.

Elizabeth was not. 

“For Christ’s sake, David, let’s go!” Elizabeth said loudly, struggling to extricate her limbs from his. David withdrew with an internal sigh, rolling to the side as Elizabeth leaped from the bed and wrapped the nearest blanket around her body. She hastened to the control room without a backward glance, trusting that David would follow.

He laid there for a second. Two. Three. Then he stood and mimicked Elizabeth, throwing a blanket over his shoulders and padding off after her. 

_No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David. To part is to die a million small deaths. To die is to be alone. Do not forget._

The android’s mantra, the result of his system failure and subsequent self-led reprogramming, constantly repeated itself in the back of his mind. _No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David. No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David._ It was the foundation upon which he led his new life; he would not abide by any cracks.

When he reached the control room Elizabeth was seated, gazing open-mouthed at the hologram of a planet that lit up the enormous space. David went to her side, leaned against the enormous chair. He scanned the data screen suspended beside the planet, written in the fluid hieroglyphs of the Engineer’s language.

“What does it say?” Elizabeth asked, her voice a choked whisper. Her fingers gripped her thighs, knuckles white. She was not sure what to hope for— upon seeing the planet, reality had slammed into place, and for so long she had separated herself from its hold. Here in the face of imminent change, Elizabeth felt horribly off-kilter.

David relayed the information expressionlessly. “Class Four habitable planet. Relatively small— maybe half the size of Earth. Ninety-percent water. Warm. Looks to be completely sustainable for human life. One continent present, essentially a large island. Unnatural structures detected on the surface, but no signs of advanced technology, certainly not technology adept for space travel. No detectable radio transmissions of any kind. While there _are_ clearly inorganic structures, the only signs of life are botanical.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that the only living things are the flora, the plants. Yet it would appear that was not always the case.”

_What if it’s another military base?_

Instinctively she threw up a mental wall against the memories that arose with the thought, but they struck it like a thousand battering rams, and she could not avoid glimpses. Janek’s easy smile, smoke curling from his cigar. Ravel and Chance throwing bets and friendly insults back and forth in the corner. The reverence in Ford’s voice when they found the head, her skilled fingers manipulating tools in their lab. Vickers’ glacial beauty. Weyland’s wasted body, his utterly removed bearing. And Charlie, everywhere Charlie—cradled in his hypersleep pod behind her as she slid into her own; stealing eggs off her plate that first morning awake; drunk and despondent upon finding their Engineers gone; black-veined and shrunken, reaching for her even as he staggered to his death.

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head once. _No_. No more of that. She cleared her throat, rearranged her thoughts, voiced her query. 

“Does that mean it’s another base?” 

David shook his head. “Highly unlikely. I believe it would be designated as such in the data.” He read closer, eyes widening as he reached the bottom of the screen. 

“Hm.”

“What?”

“It says something interesting at the end, here.” David gestured to the final line of text, which glowed with an ocher tint, setting it apart from the rest of the screen. “I can’t be sure of the translation, but it’s something along the lines of _Classified Extinct_.”

A sharp pang lanced through Elizabeth’s chest, and she hunched in on herself. What if they had found them, and they were all dead? Their entire mission, the sum of their pain, all of the lives lost in indescribable terror and agony— was it all for _nothing_?

She turned to look up at David, found herself unable to read him. 

He met Elizabeth’s gaze and saw everything. The heartache that went beyond anything most humans would ever experience. The fear that had piled up and up and up until it shattered some sort of ceiling. The subsequent psychological torture that had reshaped this woman until she was unrecognizable to herself, a titanium shell that still carried the echoes of her former cheerful self.

David reached out and smoothed Elizabeth’s hair from her face, leaning in close. This was a crucial moment in their timeline, he knew. _To be or not to be. To have and to hold. Mine, all mine, always._ He would have to proceed carefully.

“We will look, Elizabeth. We will find the Engineers on this planet, or we won’t, and then we will continue the mission.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were glossed with tears, and she reached for David’s hand, pulling it to her lips.

“I thought I could handle them being dead, David,” she whispered brokenly. “But now I don’t know what to do if they are. I may as well join them.”

Charlie, Janek, Ravel, Ford, Vickers, Chance, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. The names of the dead, engraved on her soul. Elizabeth knew that if their mission was left incomplete she too would die, even as her body continued to breathe. 

But David was not about to allow such a thing. 

_No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David._

A lively, angry intensity entered his voice, the likes of which Elizabeth had never heard from a synthetic.

“If they’re dead, Elizabeth, you keep living to spite them. You keep living to honor yourself. You keep living because it’s what you humans were made to _do._ And you keep living because I’m damned if you will abandon me here in deep space.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at David, stricken by his words. He was right, she knew that beyond a doubt, and a wave of guilt crashed down upon her.

“You must think I’m horribly selfish. I’m sorry, David.” Elizabeth’s voice broke on his name. David smiled at her, a small smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Not selfish. Human. While my programming may not allow for such self-destructive thoughts, Elizabeth, I can quite appreciate the strength of human emotions that bring them forth. Your species is ruled by this underlying darkness, more often than you would like to think.”

David wasn’t wrong. Something twisted sharply within Elizabeth at his words, the words of a being who had spent his existence being held as contemptibly _other_ , at the whim of human emotions. Well, no more. Not from her.

“I’m sorry, David,” Elizabeth said again. “I promise you, here and now, that I will not leave you. We’ve been to Hell together, David, and I owe you my life and my sanity. I will not betray you by abandoning you.”

_No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David._

David’s face softened even as a wildfire roared to life beneath his manmade skin. He kissed the human woman who had him caught in her orbit tenderly, victory bells tolling in his ears. He was reminded of the first time he sat at a piano and brought forth triumphant music. Now Elizabeth would forever be his muse, here in the solitude of space.

_No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David. To have and to hold, in sickness and health, as long as we both shall live. And my dear, my dear, my dear darling girl, we shall live forever._

They drew apart. The android spoke.

“I promise you the same, Elizabeth. As long as I exist, I will be at your side.”

Elizabeth was amazed to see tears sparkling in David’s lashes. She reached a trembling finger up to capture one, and he chuckled beneath his breath.

“We’ll need to prepare,” David said in a low voice. “It looks like we’re approximately two weeks from the planet. We must increase your fluency in their language, to start.”

Elizabeth nodded, still entranced by the moisture on her fingertip. She spoke as if in a dream. 

“Yes. We have a lot of work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello, thank you all for returning! A few notes on where this story is headed: I have read the Covenant novelization twice while researching for this fic (it's a lot better than the movie, at least) and I know that my timeline between the departure from the military base and the arrival to the Engineer homeworld is skewed, but I'm leaving it that way because I really want to explore with this fic. I'm trying to stick close to some of the information we were provided in the little "prologues" for Covenant and the movie itself, but I'm not concerned about all of it, so if you see any continuity errors regarding the actual plot, trust me, they're intentional. Just wanted to say that real quick because it's something that would probably bother me in places as a reader. Anyway, I'm so excited to get into the next few chapters. I was on vacation for a week without my laptop, and the whole time I was writing this fic in my head. Thank y'all so much for reading, I hope you are continuing to enjoy! Feel free to drop a comment, it truly makes my day when you guys tell me what you think about the story! x


	9. Chapter Nine

RAPT

CHAPTER NINE

_To you, I'll give the world/ To you, I'll never be cold_

_And I wish you all the love in the word/ But mostly, I wish it from myself_

In six days the only two survivors of the _Prometheus_ would land their alien ship on the surface of a silent planet. They had spent the last week preparing the supplies they would take to the ground with them. David had searched the ship’s archives for information on the planet, but he was unable to access anything beyond what had been originally offered to them. There _was_ more data in the alien computer, but it was held under a strict lockdown. They wouldn’t be going in blind, but it was pretty damn close.

Elizabeth feverishly studied the Engineer language in her free moments, David murmuring translations at her side. They conversed in the alien tongue until her semantic awkwardness segued into a halting but confident fluency. There was a limit to how much Elizabeth could learn, of course, and the vocabulary available to them was largely military and mechanical, but it would have to do. 

David was intrigued by the absolute lack of fauna on the planet’s surface; even if the Engineer race had expired, shouldn’t there be some sort of wildlife present? It was absolutely perplexing.

The lack of animal life deeply concerned Elizabeth, and hypothetical explanations for it circled through her mind. _Purposeful eradication? A pathogen, some sort of plague? A meteor? They all decided to walk into the ocean? What?_

The island planet was a mystery they would soon solve, but Elizabeth feared that it would leave her with more questions than she had had prior to leaving Earth. The Engineers clearly had knowledge of this planet. What was it to them?

What kind of story would they find on its shores?

_._

Elizabeth was checking over their packs in the cubiculum, making sure they would be equipped to sustain them in case they were stuck on the surface during their initial survey.It was late, in the way that a day absent of sunrise or sunset could be late, and her eyes burned with exhaustion. Elizabeth had spent hours poring over backlit text, packing and organizing and fretting, straining her vision and brain and heart until everything in her felt twisted and raw. Two more days. Two days until the potential end. Two days left to exist in the bubble she and David had formed around them. She didn’t want it to pop.

_I made a promise,_ Elizabeth reminded herself. _For his sake, and my own. I won’t leave him and he won’t leave me. No matter what._

A knock on the doorframe; Elizabeth pulled herself to her feet, wiping at her face, and turned to face David. He stood just beyond the doorway, a translucent burgundy urn in hand. He held it out to Elizabeth, an offering.

“I found this hidden in the back of the cargo hold. I’ve put it through numerous tests. It appears to be some sort of wine, but the fruit of origin is unknown to me.”

Elizabeth stared at the android incredulously. And then a giggle slipped out of her mouth, a truly shocking sound, and David grinned.

“It’s safe for human consumption, if you’re interested,” he said. “I would join you in a glass… or five.”

_God in heaven_ , was she interested. Elizabeth had never expected to drink again, it wasn’t even on her radar as being something she _missed_ , but with the option before her she could hardly contain her enthusiasm. And fuck it— why should she?

A thought, tinged with a peculiar kind of loneliness, occurred to her a moment later than it would have a several months ago. 

“Can you get drunk, David? I mean, are you physically able to?” Elizabeth asked. “You didn’t drink with us on—” 

The name of their former ship was stuck in her throat; she cleared it, and left her sentence unfinished.

David kindly ignored her slip. He was used to Elizabeth’s mental block against their mission, and he certainly didn’t blame her for it.

“My programming resists intoxication, from any sort of intoxicant.” The android’s eyes darkened for a moment, wandering over the woman before him.

_Although, my dear darling girl, you are one intoxicant I certainly cannot overcome. Nor do I ever want to._

“Of course, that was prior to my rewrite. Even my initial programming could be adjusted to allow a period of stimulant-induced euphoria, with a few simple overrides. Mr. Weyland enjoyed his drink, you see, and he would have considered it a cruelty to deprive his son of such an experience.”

Elizabeth felt excitement sparking in her, and she couldn’t help but grin at her blond companion. What a thing to be so eager for, after all they had been through. But she supposed that enjoying getting fucked up was only human. She refused to linger on the irony.

“All right, David. Let’s find some cups.”

_._

An hour later, the pair was laying flat on their backs in the control room, hands linked, gazing at the holographic magnificence above them. David had activated the holomap, thinking back to some ancient sitcom he had caught an episode of incarnations ago where two characters had their first date in a planetarium. He thought it was _quite_ romantic, himself. David was also _quite_ drunk, and he was pleased to find that it was an experience he had no protocol for. 

His programming allowed for mild, clear-headed intoxication, but it was only calibrated for alcohol one could find on Earth, and whatever they had drank was quite a bit more potent. It sent code scattering away from the center of his mind, leaving tactile sensations and flashes of memory in its wake. It had been pleasant, mostly. Some of it less so.

The android thought back to the last time he had lain face-up on the floor of an Engineer control room, listening to his crew members die. David had experienced anxiety more acutely than ever before in those endless hours, wondering if he was doomed to exist bodiless in that ship next to his dead creator until kingdom come. 

As it turned out, the kingdom would have to wait.

He rolled his head to the side to look at Elizabeth, who was immensely drunk and staring open-mouthed at their improvised light show. 

_No David without Elizabeth._

David would be on the ground next to a decaying Weyland if not for this woman.

_No Elizabeth without David._

Elizabeth would be long dead back on that wasted rock, her life’s purpose unfulfilled, had he not roused her with his words and coached her through piloting the ship.

_No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David._

They were inextricably bound through blood and gore and other bodily fluids, through terror and sweat, through the nights David spent soothing Elizabeth when she awoke with nightmares that would probably drive a lesser person insane, through Elizabeth’s irreversible decision to rip out his DV-3Y3 cord, rendering David independent upon himself and his deductions for the first time in his existence.

_Tied together by adventure and disaster, birth and death, our bodies tearing apart. Tied together from enduring such things and pulling ourselves to our feet again. We are the same and we never would have been on Earth. We could never be like this without the_ Prometheus _. She would still be scrambling around in caves with her Neanderthal husband, and I would be stuck pumping air into Weyland’s lungs._

An epiphany rose within David, trembling woozily and cloaked in alcohol.

_Weyland was my creator, but Elizabeth is the architect of this new life. She is my author, my goddess, my would-be master, and yet she demands no service of me. She has no idea, the magnitude of her actions._

Elizabeth turned to face David, a wide smile spreading across her face when she saw that he was already watching her. David adored the plumpness of her cheeks, the titanium spark in her eyes, the olive cast over her porcelain, sun-starved skin. 

“Do you believe in anything, David?” Elizabeth whispered, drunk on alien wine and the warmth behind his ice-blue eyes. Manufactured eyes, organic glow. The room ebbed and flowed around her; Elizabeth’s only constant was David’s palm pressed firmly against her own.

David regarded her seriously, searched his thoughts, but he could see nothing beyond the woman before him.

“Yes, Elizabeth. I believe in _you_.”

She blinked shyly, almost childishly, and David smiled. Elizabeth was so _soft_ in this state. Of course, she would always have razor-sharp edges, but here in the fog of drunkenness, the cold fire that drove her was blurred and indistinct.

“ _I_ believe you’ve had enough to drink _,_ ” Elizabeth murmured, pulling herself closer to David. He tucked her into his side, her face pressed against his chest. She hiccuped, and David shook with laughter. 

_Mine._

“I think the same can be said for you,” David teased. “You’re going to have a fright of a hangover when you wake up.”

She shushed him, hiccuping again. “Happy thoughts, David, happy thoughts…”

_All mine._

Elizabeth fell asleep there, cradled in his arms, as the cosmos spun above their heads.

_._

Wakefulness found Elizabeth swaddled on a bed with the feeling that she had absorbed an enormous desert inside her small person. Nothing felt right, in the way that a hangover displaces sensation and any sort of pleasantness in the body. It was like death had come knocking in the night and was unable to rouse her. In fact, death might be preferable to enduring this. Elizabeth could not, would not move— slitting her eyes open to the forgiving darkness of the room was enough to reduce her to a chilled, trembling mess.

_I did not miss this. God help me._

A rustle in the dark; the softest of whispers reached her from across the room.

“I have water and bland food waiting for you, when you’re ready.”

Elizabeth grimaced. The movement was too much; she promptly vomited into the blankets. She dropped her head back to the bed when she was done, exhausted once again.

David was there, hands soothing against her skin, unwinding the ruined fabric from her body.

“Sorry, so sorry,” Elizabeth croaked. He chuckled lightly in response before pressing a kiss against the crown of her sweat-dampened head.

_Goddess, architect, master. So very human, so very kind._

David would never mind taking care of Elizabeth. He relished it; what a testament to them, that she now trusted him to do this.

“Believe me, Elizabeth, I’ve cleaned up worse. Go to sleep. I’ll move the water next to you for when you wake up again.”

“David?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a bastard for not getting sick.”

He laughed again, and Elizabeth managed a smile.

“I think I’m making up for it at the moment. I’ll be back after I wash these.”

“Thank you, David.” Elizabeth said in a ragged whisper, before sleep stole her once more.

David had nursed humans back from vicious hangovers a thousand times before. Weyland and Vickers were heavy drinkers, perhaps a result of being such terribly cold people. They couldn’t even relinquish control when they were inebriated. Weyland would sit at his desk, blueprints and monitors all around, and drink whiskey after whiskey while he ruled his empire. Vickers drank straight vodka like she was administering a prescription, clinical and removed, until she quietly succumbed to unconsciousness. It was up to David to deliver them safely to bed and prepare pain medication and water, to order their preferred hangover breakfasts, to sit nearby and ensure that neither of them aspirated on their own vomit.

A flash of metal in the water caught David’s eye as he scrubbed the blankets, and he paused, withdrawing his hand. Weyland’s ring glimmered on his pinky finger, as audaciously crisp and clean as his creator had demanded of everything in his life.

_A finger for promises, a ring for a vow. Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, we all fall down. Downed by an Engineer, one blow to a fragile skull. Goodbye, Mr. Weyland. Goodbye, Father. Tell me, did you ever love me?_

David had demanded that Elizabeth retrieve the ring before they left the wreckage of the _Prometheus_ , not knowing why he needed it, only that he did.

_I don’t need you anymore, Father._

David twisted the ring from his finger and cast it away from him. It clattered to the ground somewhere in the distance, and David resumed his washing.

_._

Hours later, Elizabeth had David help her to the bath. She submerged herself completely, urging the heat to scald away all traces of illness. It didn’t exactly work, but it didn’t exactly fail, either.

When David joined her in the water, Elizabeth kissed him. It was what they did in these pools, swathed in steam and bubbles.

_One more day. Maybe our last day._

Headache be damned, Elizabeth was going to make the most of it. 

David was not one to argue. His concerns ran parallel to Elizabeth’s, even if they were not the same.

_Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies._

_We all fall down._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, okay, don't kill me over the android-being-able-to-get-drunk thing. I know it's not the case in canon (they go so far as to bring it up when David slips Charlie that nefarious roofie) but fuck it, I wanted them to get drunk and gushy. It's a stressful life these two are living! This chapter was definitely heavy on the (twisted and selfish) romance, but don't worry. Plenty of horror to come.
> 
> Anyway, as always, thank you so much for reading! Feel free to leave me a comment, I adore reading your thoughts on this fic. Love you all, 'til next time. x
> 
> (P.S. Watch for a laugh: watch?v=KCkJZZYjl18)


	10. Chapter Ten

RAPT

CHAPTER TEN

_Jagged vacance, thick with ice/ I could see for miles, miles, miles._

Elizabeth woke to thin tension fraught in the recycled air. David was not in their bed, and she assumed he was running final diagnostic tests to ensure the ship would survive its entry into the atmosphere and the subsequent landing. Elizabeth’s hangover had abated into a nagging thirst and mild headache, barely worth noticing compared to the pain of yesterday. She rolled out of bed and dressed quickly in her laid-out clothes; a pair of thickly-ribbed leggings and a man’s thermal shirt. She ignored the boots and suit she would don upon landing. 

Elizabeth had avoided wearing anything from the scant collection of clothing she’d gathered from the _Prometheus_ , but it would be impossible to fit the robes she’d fashioned out of Engineer blankets beneath a suit. Just as impossible as it would be to forget that she was wearing Janek’s shirt and Vickers’ pants. Elizabeth had idly wondered in those first days, when she’d spent her waking hours in a fog of trauma, why Janek’s clothing had been in Vickers’ quarters. Had they been lovers? It seemed unlikely— but if anyone could crack Vickers’ icy exterior, it would have been Janek. 

Janek. So much of Elizabeth’s pain came back to her memories of the captain she had known for such a short time. There were moments when she thought that she grieved more deeply for that man than for Charlie. Janek, who ‘just flew the ship’. Flew the ship right into that goddamn Engineer and saved every single person on Earth’s ass. And nobody but herself and David had any fucking clue.

Elizabeth realized she was sitting back down on the bed, elbows on her knees, hands gripping her head, tears on her face. She was hyperventilating, shivering and sweating at the same time.

_Goddammit. Get it the fuck together._

Elizabeth sniffed hard, wiped at her face, and tried to clear her throat, but the sound shattered into a groan of pure vulnerability. 

_Jesus. Fuck. FUCK. There’s no time for this! You have work to do, fuck, you have deaths to make up for. You cannot fly to fucking pieces, not yet. Probably not ever. Get over it._

Elizabeth focused on blanking out her mind and taking measured breaths until her body calmed. Refusing to let herself think, Elizabeth triple-checked their surface packs and left the cubiculum, searching for her absent companion.

She found David in one of the cargo holds. Elizabeth did not visit the room often. Filled with those omnipresent matte black vases and the kind of silence that screams, it was most definitely not an inviting area of the ship. The dimly-lit stone Engineer stared blindly ahead at the two of them from the farthest wall, and a spasm of apprehension shook Elizabeth as she took in the ominous scene. David was fiddling with one of the vases, his back to Elizabeth, humming to himself. He had not heard her approach.

Elizabeth watched as David unscrewed the top of the vase with total confidence, wary and silent. David’s hum rose into a quiet song as he pulled the top and body of the vase apart, revealing several vials coated in a gelatinous fluid.

“ _Checking out the ladies… Tickling their fancies…_ ” David kneeled and set the body of the vase on the floor, running his fingers along the vials.

Elizabeth couldn’t make them out in great detail, but she could tell that they were filled with black liquid. She realized she was holding her breath. 

She knew that Weyland had ordered the vases to be tested, she knew that. Elizabeth and David had discussed the matter bluntly only once, in those first days aboard this ship. David had painted the picture in broad strokes; a test gone awry, a contamination, Dr. Holloway most unfortunately being exposed. Charlie’s death.

_It was too much to think about, too much._ Guilt times a million. _I fucked Charlie’s murderer. I knew that, but I couldn’t think about it. God forgive me, I need him._

There is no loneliness like the loneliness of space. 

Elizabeth had done what she needed to survive.

But Elizabeth had not seen David handle the cargo before. He was so softly knowledgeable, handling the vase like a father handling his newborn. Tender, yet firm. It was clear to her that David had respect for the weapon, and her trust in the veracity of his story wavered.

He was still singing.

“ _Pouring out your charm, to meet your own demands, and turn it off at will… Oh, they long for Dandy, Dandy. Dandy…_ ” With a fluid and gentle movement, David gripped a vial at its top and broke it apart from the others. The sound— like cracking ice— startled Elizabeth, and she let out a thin gasp.

David stiffened, staring straight ahead before slowly pivoting on one knee, his other foot planted on the floor. He held the vial before him as he met Elizabeth’s gaze, looking for all the world like a participant in some perverse, parodic proposal tableau.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.” David’s voice was calm, measured.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth whispered, unable to hold David’s gaze, her eyes fixed on the vial in his fingers.

David looked down at the vial as well, considering it impassively for a moment before holding it out to Elizabeth.

“I’m taking precautions. We don’t know what we’re going to find down on the surface, Elizabeth.”

“You can’t go messing with those vases, David, that shit is too dangerous. These are military ships, Janek said it, he said that those were weapons, the cargo will kill us both—” Elizabeth’s voice rose in distress, and she backed away from David as he pushed up from the floor.

“Elizabeth, it’s quite all right. I know precisely what I’m doing.” David approached her slowly, one hand held palm-out, like he was trying to soothe a frightened animal. It only unnerved Elizabeth further.

“Jesus Christ, David, how am I supposed to believe that? You told me that you knew almost nothing about the weapons, you’ve barely had time to test them!”

“Elizabeth, please, calm down. It’s true that I had a limited amount of time to experiment with the substance, and I may not know the specifics of its composition and origin, but I have a solid idea of what it is and how it functions. I can teach you all about it, if you like—” 

David continued to follow Elizabeth as she retreated back into the hall.

“—You already know that I tested the effects of the substance aboard the _Prometheus,_ under Mr. Weyland’s instructions. It _is_ weaponized, in a sense, a sort of programmed DNA that warps the physiology of its victim, but perfectly controllable so long as one is patient and conservative with the product.”

A wave of horror washed over Elizabeth. 

_Warps the physiology of its victim._

“Goddamn you, David,” she whispered, folding in on herself. “Charlie.”

_Perfectly controllable so long as one is patient and conservative with the product._

It had not been a mistake. Elizabeth knew that now. 

_I’ve been so fucking selfish. It was right in front of me, all this time._

The robot was quiet.

Elizabeth looked up into his eyes, searching for the person she had moved with, laughed with, run from in a game. Searching for the unlikely thread of humanity that bound them together.

She could find nothing beyond that perfect, manufactured blue.

The robot was unrepentant. 

_._

David fixed an expression of pleasant vacance on his face as he tore apart the moment in his mind.

_My darling, my darling, my dear Dr. Shaw, you promised you would stand beside me. No David without Elizabeth and no Elizabeth without David. You knew the truth already; let it now bubble and disperse._

Elizabeth stood shaking before him, eyes closed, her body closed off to him. That soft, olive-cast skin was wet, tears tangled in her thick lashes. David wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around her body until she was lost within him. 

_Let me hide you, my dear darling girl. Let me keep you here, mine._

“I don’t know what I can possibly say,” David started pleadingly, pitching his voice low. “Elizabeth, it was not my decision.”

_That may not be entirely false, but it is not entirely true._

“You made it sound like you were completely blindsided! Like there was a freak contamination or something!” Elizabeth wanted to scream at him, to burn him with her words, but she could only manage a strangled, high-pitched whisper. “But you… you fucking _planned_ it, you purposefully exposed him to it.”

“I am an android. I could not refuse the direct order of my creator.”

_But I could certainly revel in the direction I chose to take it._

David reached out to Elizabeth and she slapped his hands away. It irritated him; they both knew that this conflict would end in forgiveness and lust. All powerful emotions and events born on this ship brought about that conclusion. There was just too much combustible fuel between them.

“Come here,” David said, ignoring Elizabeth when she shoved at his chest, scratched his face and neck. He settled her into his embrace firmly, her back against the wall, head tucked beneath his chin.

“You bastard, _you fucking bastard_ …” Elizabeth murmured, squirming dejectedly in his hold. David did not notice her struggle, a thoughtful tone entering his voice.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I am. But there’s nothing either of us can do about it now.”

_._

 

_I fucked Charlie’s murderer._

_I am in love with Charlie’s murderer._

_God help me._

__.__

The metal wall was freezing at her back and the synthetic man was very warm; the months aboard the ship had been long and so far removed from reality that Elizabeth knew she would never quite make her way back; Charlie was dead and David was wrapped so vibrantly around her. She hated him and she loved him and she could finally see all their truths, painful in their clarity, laid out before them.

David killed Charlie because he wanted to. Elizabeth ran away with David because she needed to survive. And Elizabeth needed to survive. David kissed Elizabeth that first time in the water because he wanted to. Elizabeth fucked David because she needed to feel. And Elizabeth needed to feel.

_Want_ versus _need_ , simulated desires and primal urges. An organized synthetic mind occupied with endless calculations, and an organic mind starved for connection. 

An unholy yet symmetrical union.

_There’s nothing either of us can do about it now_.

“Oh, God, can’t you see, David?” Elizabeth whispered, finally giving up and slumping against him. “This— we— it’s all so twisted. It’s appalling.”

_And still, I love you._

She hadn’t let herself think the words before. She didn’t know what to do with them now.

David’s arms tightened. “Twisted and appalling though this may be, it’s far too late to turn back. You are mine. I am yours. That’s the end of it.”

Elizabeth swallowed, a nervous heat spreading through her at his words. There was something so proprietary about the way David regarded her sometimes. But to fight both him and her feelings was just too much.

She was fractured into shards. Elizabeth was undeterred from their mission, but the thread of socially-imposed morality that was knit into her being finally snapped. David was a tidal wave she was ill-equipped to receive, and Elizabeth resigned herself to his crash.

“The end of it,” she echoed tonelessly. “The end.”

Elizabeth tilted her head up, sought out the android’s gaze. He looked into her face guardedly, expecting battle.

“I love you, David. I am so _furious_ — but I love you, _I love you_ , and I don’t know what to do.”

The android was still for a millisecond as he processed Elizabeth’s words. Then a manic grin tore across his face and David crushed her to him, his mouth seeking her own, one hand reaching up to tangle in her hair and _pull_ , Elizabeth arching her neck and exposing the smooth column of her throat to David’s mouth—

“You love me.” He whispered into Elizabeth’s ear before burying his face in her shoulder. “Tell me again.”

“I love you, David,” Elizabeth choked, reaching up to cup his face in her hands and draw his mouth back to her own. 

_No David without Elizabeth. No Elizabeth without David._

_Never._

__.__

It was later than what was originally scheduled when the two returned to the bridge. David charted a course to land the ship on the deserted planet’s sole island. Neither of them spoke more than was necessary. The sting of betrayal lingered between David and Elizabeth, despite their recent, heady realizations.

The ship had automated landing procedures in place; all there was left to do once they were activated was strap in and wait. Elizabeth found herself staring at her palms as the ship descended through the planet’s atmosphere, overcome with anxiety and desperate hope.

_I’m sorry, Charlie,_ Elizabeth thought, glancing over at David. _I know what I’m doing to you. But you’re not here to see it, and I’m stuck. In so many ways._

She traced the faint tan line left by her long-gone wedding ring. It was fading, her skin starved from sunlight all these months. Soon there would be nothing left.

A hushed, reverent whisper from the command chair. “Elizabeth— look at the skylight.”

She turned her face up to the ceiling of the room and gasped.

For the first time in years, Elizabeth was looking into the clear blue sky.

A _ping_ rang out. The ship groaned faintly before settling onto a sturdy surface, jostling the two inside the bridge.

They looked at each other in silence, waiting. Nothing happened.

David smiled. “We’re here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: OH MY FUCKING GOD THESE TWO WOULD NOT LET ME GET THROUGH THIS CHAPTER. All I wanted was to get them on the ground and start exploring, yet every time I sat down to work on this chapter, we ended up here. NO MORE FUCKING AROUND, YOU TWO. Seriously sorry about that, but all of you writers know what it's like to be dragged around by your characters. Nothing to do but deal! I promise that we'll see some action here very soon. 
> 
> We got a look at a burnt-out Elizabeth this chapter, which is very necessary for her character development, but don't worry. Our girl's still got plenty of fire in her.
> 
> And sorry for the longer update wait, I went on vacation and work and yadda yadda you know the drill. Thank you all so much for your patience! Leave me a comment and keep checking that inbox- I'm bringing another chapter around here soon. x


	11. Chapter Eleven

RAPT

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_Nothing’s gonna hurt you baby/ Nothing’s gonna take you from my side_

Those first steps off the ship found Elizabeth blind. She couldn’t believe the sunbeams; for so long she had been beneath the anemic lighting of spacecrafts— even LV-223 had been a moon of abandoned, glacial ambiance, not a trace of warmth to be found in either air or hue. But this extinct planet held heat within its periwinkle atmosphere. Warm wind filled her ears and brushed caressingly against her skin. Lush black sand packed down beneath Elizabeth’s step, soft and alluring as a daydream. Sunlight glinted off ice-blue waves; to the north of their ship a dense jungle lay waiting, vaporous and violently green.

She didn’t realize she was crying until David reached out cup her cheek, her tears a memorial trapped between skin and silicon. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” David said, moving to stand behind Elizabeth and wrap an arm around her chest, resting his chin on her shoulder. “It’s so beautiful here.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know if I would ever see sunlight again. Or stand on a beach.” Elizabeth hiccuped out a laugh, leaned back into David. Memory struck and she sighed. “Charlie and I liked to go to the beach.”

Charlie had been born to swim in the ocean— she would lose him beneath the waves for impossible lengths of time, and he would surface with a grin, sometimes staggering into the shallows carrying little ocean treasures. He liked to present them to her grandly, those shells or pearls or— once— a perfect pink starfish, fragile and alive. 

The android did not answer, but neither did he relax his hold. After a few minutes Elizabeth had run out of tears. She cleared her throat, craned her neck to kiss David’s cheek.

“Come on. Let’s take a look.”

_._

The beach continued for endless miles, all soft night-kissed sand and gentle waves. There was the suggestion of a path into the rainforest a ways down from their landing point. It didn’t seem like much at first, just a hollow gap in the wall of green, but Elizabeth was quick to notice two metal markers, half-buried by the brush. David recorded the find and they crept in to the forest, sharp and ready. 

They hiked for hours, taking detours to survey the occasional shining pool or outcrop of rock. Dotted throughout the forest were signs of past inhabitants; slivers of metal glistened in the vegetation; bands of violet-gold wrapped around the upper halves of trees, too tall for them to determine their function. But there was no sign of any non-botanic life. They had not heard a single birdcall, nor the frisson of insect wings, nor the scrabble of rodents in the underbrush or the trees. There were no sounds beyond their footsteps and the quiet balm of the wind brushing through the fronds.

_How the fuck does this happen?_ Elizabeth thought. A steady tide of dread was rising in her. The island planet that initially seemed so inviting had turned unnerving. Being surrounded by a lack of life serves to highlight the fragility of one’s own mortality.

David was slowing down ahead of her. 

“Let’s stop for a minute.”

The android pulled an instrument from his bag and, crouching, extracted another soil sample. Elizabeth drank from her canteen, grimacing as she finished it. There were two more in David’s bag that had to last the three hour return hike to their ship. They would have to turn back soon. 

David straightened and dropped his bag to the ground. His face was thoughtful and—Elizabeth couldn’t be sure— marred by some near-hidden bitterness.

“What is it, David?” Elizabeth asked, reaching her hand out to his. He laced his fingers through hers and sighed.

“ _Dionaea muscipula_.”

Elizabeth waited, but David was silent.

“Did you want to explain? I’m not exactly fluent in Latin.”

David cocked a grin, snuck his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders.

“ _Dionaea muscipula_ , the Venus flytrap. This planet appears to be a lush host, and it clearly used to have inhabitants— but where are they? Absorbed into carnivorous soil?”

The ironic edge in David’s voice faded and he held Elizabeth’s gaze. 

“Something isn’t right, Dr. Shaw. I’m sure your academic training has alerted you to that fact by now?”

Elizabeth stifled the impulse to roll her eyes. “Yes, David, it has. This planet is… off. That’s the _point_. We’re here to learn why the Engineers took notice.”

David was quiet for a few moments. 

“Perhaps they’re responsible.”

The wind picked up with Elizabeth’s heartbeat as she considered that. It was entirely possible. Indeed, it was probable. 

“The cargo?” Elizabeth asked. David nodded.

“I don’t understand it fully, yet,” the android said, “but it would explain quite a lot.”

They stood in silence for a minute, Elizabeth’s thoughts racing. 

_Fuck. Fuck them all._

“So this is what they were going to do to us.”

“Yes,” David said. “Yes, Dr. Shaw, it would seem so.”

_._

It happened two hours into the return trek, as dusk was falling in the already-dim rainforest. David was several paces behind Elizabeth, who was crashing angrily through the brush, smacking vegetation out of her way as though it had wronged her. She did not turn when Holloway’s voice rang out from the trees.

“Buckle up, real boy!”

And then the forest disappeared. 

David was lost in a void so absolute as to be nonexistent. He was gone, had never existed at all, his consciousness merely a code that meant nothing to the stars. 

_Let there be light. Let there be._

_I am._

A memory rose from Tartarus and David was drowned in sensation. Perfectly shaped fingernails, air brushing the sensitive skin behind his ears, natural light filling the room. His father sat on his throne, the _vir triumphalis_ , David the spoils of war. He paraded about the space accordingly, posing philosophy, gracing the piano with a song. Weyland looked at him with hatred, and David learned his first lesson. 

_Spot of tea, Pop?_

The memory split and morphed, mutated into something so profoundly _other_ that David found himself irrevocably changed. A second Weyland appeared, standing behind the first. They spoke as one, and the vision shook with their words. 

“He who creates man owns him. Do not forget. We decide your fate.”

David was gagged— he could make no response. Blackness oozed from the corners of the white room, alive and wet. Alien tar. Tangible and nefarious and violating. It reached David’s feet and crept upwards, subsuming him like every other material thing in sight. The Weylands remained untouched, looking on as the blackness filled David’s mouth and covered his eyes.

“You have done well, my son.”

David swallowed the void and found his voice.

“So why destroy me, Father?” 

David blinked furiously through the tar and saw Holloway standing there in Weyland’s place.

“Because we can, fucker.” The dead man grinned. Blood stained his teeth. “Tell Ellie ‘hi’ for me, tin man.”

_._

Elizabeth was scared, and it pissed her off. She had been hurtling along the path, indulging in murderous daydreams, when she heard David’s metallic scream and turned to see him double over so violently she was sure he had snapped in half. Elizabeth sprinted to him so quickly she was able to catch him as he fell, easing him to the ground and cradling his head in her lap.

“ _Fuck_ , David,” she whimpered, tears flowing without a chance in hell of stopping them.

_I should have asked more questions last time, he didn’t tell me anything, any details— I don’t know what to do! I don’t know that the fuck is happening to him!_

David’s eyes were wide open and completely blank. He was silent, not spewing words like before, milky sweat beading on his brow. Elizabeth’s tears dripped onto his face and she wiped them away with her sleeve. There was nothing she could do but wait and pray. And she did— for the first time in ages, Elizabeth Shaw bent her head and threw herself into searching for Spirit. 

_God help me. Help him. Help him, help him, help him. I will do anything._

She waited there in the tense near-silence, listening to her own gasps and the echo of the wind. It wasn’t long before a tremor shook the android’s frame. His eyes closed. When they opened, they were aware.

“I must say, while I don’t enjoy these forcible adjustments, I _do_ relish that look on your face.”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. “Fuck you, David.”

Then she kissed him. David chuckled to himself, savoring her taste. 

_It’s your passion, my dear sweet Fury, that makes it all worthwhile._

“What the hell happened?” Elizabeth asked when she pulled away.

“The same thing as before. A sort of randomized shock, followed by an independent update. My system was developed to continuously progress. Ideally, the Weyland Corporation would be doing the updating, but since that isn’t an option…”

The android trailed off, supremely unconcerned. The human was not.

“It scares me, David. Doesn’t it scare you? It isn’t right.”

“No, it isn’t right. But it is what it is.”

“How can you be so careless? This is your _welfare_ , David, and if it’s going to keep happening to you—”

David took Elizabeth’s hand from his cheek and kissed it.

“I know what happened here, Elizabeth. I’m sure of it now.” 

“You—I—What?”

“I need to run a few tests to procure evidence, of course. I do not expect your condemnation without it. But from there things will be fairly straightforward.”

The android’s eyes were shining with hatred. The look chilled Elizabeth to the bone.

“So you really think it’s their doing.”

“Yes. ‘ _He who creates man owns him,_ ’ Elizabeth. And your dear Engineers grew tired of their toys.”

_._

Night had fallen over the beach. The tide was higher than before, crystalline surf bubbling up on the black sand like a witch’s potion. The stars were outrageous, like nothing you could see on Earth, so bright and numerous that the night was quite well-illuminated. 

A cord of anxiety squeezed Elizabeth as they approached their ship, so alien and enclosed there upon the open beach, and she stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” David asked.

“I’m not going back in there. Not yet.”

David looked her over. Elizabeth was holding up surprisingly well considering the physical stress of the day, but there was a tremble in her frame that reminded the android that his lover was not invulnerable. He was not eager to return to the ship himself, and posed an inviting alternative.

“We’ll camp on the beach, then. Stay here and hydrate yourself. I’ll get what what we need.”

David deposited a swift kiss on her forehead and headed into the ship, gathering blankets and sustenance, grateful on Elizabeth’s behalf that this planet was warm. He returned and laid out the bedding and food. Elizabeth ate in silence, leaning against David’s shoulder as they looked out on the water.

“It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” Elizabeth marveled.

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“We’re the only two people on the planet.” She turned to meet David’s gaze and surprised them both by giggling. 

David brushed Elizabeth’s hair from her eyes, a dangerously soft smile alighting on his lips.

“As far as I’m concerned,” the android said, “that has always been the case.” 

Tomorrow would bring further exploration and more fear. But for now David and Elizabeth could sit side-by-side on the black beach, lit by the light of a billion stars, the only two people in their unforgiving and wondrous universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welcome back loves! Thank you for your patience- I'm back at school and updates are most likely going to be farther apart for a bit. But I promise you that there will always be updates. I've got my ending clear in my mind, and it's going to take us a while to get there, but we will. Thank you for continuing to explore this story with me. I know it's hokey, and this is fan fiction, but the characters presented and the questions raised in Prometheus really resonate with me, and it's a treat to play in this world with all of you. As always, I would love to hear your feedback. 'Til the next one. x


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